Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions

This article is part of the Center for Media & Democracy's spotlight on front groups and corporate spin.

The Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions (CCRES) describes itself as representing "business organizations, industry associations and consumer advocacy groups that support a Made in Canada solution to deal with this important global issue."

The group was publicly launched in September 2002, but had a relatively short life-span. The group's last media statement was in mid-February 2003.

In December 2002 Canada's Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs criticized CCRES in Parliament. "In September 2002, at the news conference to launch the 'Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions', the chamber's president made the groundless statement that Kyoto would 'destroy the economy'. She cited no study to back up this claim. This is the 'Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions': some responsible, some solutions," she said. [1]

Contents

Connection to National Public Relations

The domain name for CCRES was registered in September, 2002, a week before the group's first media events, by National Public Relations, Canada's largest PR agency and an affiliate of Burson-Marsteller. It was registered by Scott Cressman, now the creative director for National Public Relations in Calgary.

A campaigner for Greenpeace, Josh Matlow, attended one of CCRES's events for politicians. In an article for Now he wrote that the meeting was organized by Guy Giorno, "Mike Harris's old chief of staff and ultimate Tory party insider. Giorno now works with National Public Relations (NPR), the coalition's high-priced lobby firm." [2]

Following the CCRES event, Giono sent a letter "suggesting what MPPs might say in any op-ed news pieces or in letters to constituents and so on," according to James Bradley, one of the politicians who received it. [3]

Bradley told the Ontario Legislative Assembly that a later message stated "Unfortunately, materials from the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions were sent to your office in error in a previous e-mail. I do apologize for any inconvenience." [4]

He then asked: "Is it true, then, that they were simply giving this information to Conservative MPPs to spout exactly what they are saying about the Kyoto accord?" [5]

Lobbyist For Industry, Consultant For Government

The following year J. Kwan asked a question in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly. "The boss at National Public Relations, B.C. office, is Marcia Smith. On September 4, 2002, Marcia Smith registered as a lobbyist for an oil and mining industry association, the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions. These guys don't like Kyoto, but they sure like oil and coal. It was Marcia Smith's job to lobby government on their behalf as the government was putting its energy plan together. She really must be convincing — good enough that only five days later, the Minister of Energy and Mines hired her to work on this government's energy plan. Can the Minister of Energy tell us why he was paying Marcia Smith to help develop his energy plan when she was also being paid by big oil to lobby on the very same energy plan?" [6] The Minister for Mines and Energy, Richard Neufeld, did not respond directly to the question.

Members

While claiming to include "consumer advocacy groups" amongst its members, the October 2002 list of members comprises only industry groups: [7] (Pdf)